National Centenarian Awareness
Project/Centenarian Project – Inspiring Positive Aging. Our nonprofit organization celebrates
active centenarians as role models for the
future of aging. On our BLOG, we discuss centenarians and what it’s like to Live to 100 and
Beyond.

When Lynn Peters Adler was 15 years old, she went shopping with her
grandmother for a new winter coat. After they’d made their
selection, the salesperson asked Lynn, “How does she want to pay for
this?” To which Lynn, her radar in full spin, replied, “Why don’t
you ask her?”

What her grandmother, who was in her 60s, said to her on the way
home confirmed Lynn’s suspicion: “No one wants to talk with you when
you’re old.”

That day the seed was planted that led Adler to her life’s work. She
is founder and director of the nonprofit National Centenarian
Awareness Project (NCAP), an organization that advocates for
seniors’ active involvement in society. NCAP’s goal is to find,
honor and celebrate all Americans age 100 or older. The U.S has the
largest population of centenarians in the world, and NCAP has a
centenarian registry of some 2,000 and counting.

The author with some centenarians
friends.

Adler considers it a privilege to have known an entire generation of
centenarians during her work over the past 28 years. For her most
recent book, “Celebrate 100: Centenarian Secrets to Success in
Business and Life,” she surveyed more than 500 people who’d reached
100 – her oldest interviewee was over 116. Co-authored with Steven
Franklin, the book is a compilation of impressive life stories,
wisdom, wit and advice.

Adler defines “active centenarians” as those who still have a
modicum of good mental and physical health. She believes these
extraordinary people are role models for the future of aging.

We
talked to Adler about “Celebrate 100” and NCAP during a recent phone
conversation.

Tell us more about the genesis of NCAP.

What I started paying attention to at 15 was that my grandmother
really was treated differently, even within our family. I thought it
just was not right that as a person became older they were treated
differently. I began talking with older people at what was then
called the “old folks home,” and I have to credit that experience
with my having a rapport with older people that is quite direct.

At 15, I didn’t know the word “ageism.” In fact, the term wasn’t
coined until 1969 by Dr. Robert Butler. But by the time I got to law
school in the early 1980’s, I recognized what disturbed me so much
about what I would call “the shunning.”

After law school I became an active volunteer in Arizona’s aging
community. Back then there were so many naysayers. Even people who
worked in the field of aging would say to me, “Why do you want to be
bothered with those old people? Just leave them where they are.
They’re happy there. They don’t want to be invited to a gala
celebration.” They were absolutely wrong! I met my first
centenarian, fell in love and decided that I would find every
centenarian in Arizona, and I pretty much did. There were 271 at the
time.

7 Life Secrets of CentenariansPlanning to live to 100? Here's a guide
from those who have already made it.By Lynn Peters Adler, J.D. | August 17, 2013

Lynn Peters Adler, J.D., is the
co-author, with Steve Franklin, Ph.D., of the
new book, Celebrate 100: Centenarian Secrets to
Success in Business and Life. She is founder and
director of the National Centenarian Awareness
Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to
celebrating centenarians and combating ageism.

There is no one pathway to reaching age 100.
We all have the opportunity to grab the
brass ring in our own way and many of us
will. One in 26 baby boomers is now expected
to live to 100; legions more will reach the
mid-to-late 90s. In Celebrate 100:
Centenarian Secrets to Success in Business
and Life, the new book I co-authored with
Steve Franklin, we share advice distilled
from interviews and surveys of more than 500
centenarians. Their insights form a guide to
what lies ahead as we inch our way through
our 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s.

How Centenarians Live Now

Will we still be having fun when we reach
100? A chorus of active centenarians answers
a resounding, "Yes!"

More people are living to 100, and many are
crossing the century barrier in relatively
good health. From 1980 to 2010, the number
of centenarians in the United States grew 66
percent, while the total population grew 36
percent, according to the U.S. Census
Bureau. As of the 2010 census, there were
more than 53,000 Americans 100 or older.

How do you get to 100? One way to find out
is to ask centenarians how they made it,
which is what Lynn Peters Adler has been
doing for almost 30 years.
Adler, founder and director of the
not-for-profit National Centenarian
Awareness Project, has learned from her
talks with thousands of centenarians that
many share similar personality traits.

"They
have a positive yet realistic attitude," she
says. While many "young" people -- like
those in their 60s and 70s -- might complain
about disabilities and a declining quality
of life, centenarians typically recognize
the limits and cherish their lives. "They
accept the losses and changes that come with
aging, and don't let it stop them," Adler
says. "They find ways to cope, adjust,
adapt."

A thoroughly enthralling book that proves
the truth of the adage, "with age comes
wisdom."

Based on video
recorded interviews and extensive surveys of
more than 500 Centenarians, this
unforgettable book brings you into a world
few human beings have ever known. What must
it be like to have lived an entire
century—and not just any century, but one of
the most fertile, productive, cataclysmic,
revolutionary hundred-year periods in the
history of the human race?

Imagine
having navigated all of life's personal
milestones against the backdrop of the Jazz
Age, the Great Depression, two World Wars,
the Space Age, the Digital Age, and 9/11;
what stories you would have to tell! In
their own words, and with no small measure
of good humor, these remarkable men and
women tell their stories and share their
insights on life, business, making it and
losing it, great sorrow and joy—and having
lived to tell the tale.

Distills
the wisdom and wit of 500 centenarians
into six sections covering the passage
of time, career, money, time management,
secrets of longevity, and capturing and
sharing wisdom

Based on
over 500 taped interviews and extensive
questionnaire surveys developed and
conducted by noted experts Steve
Franklin and Lynn Peters Adler

Editorial
Reviews

"If you want
to win with money or life, you need to take
a good look at other people who are winning.
If you want to know how to win over the long
haul, you need to talk to people who have a
lot of life experience under their belts and
who've still come out ahead. That's exactly
what you'll get in Celebrate 100."
—Dave Ramsey, New York Times bestselling
author and nationally syndicated radio show
host

"Anyone who has ever listened to old men tell stories in a town
square or heard grandmothers and great-grandmothers chatter in the
kitchen knows the sheer joy and fascination of it. Now Steve
Franklin and Lynn Peters Adler have brought us a book that
crackles—and cackles—with just such an experience. Their compilation
of centenarian stories, 'secrets' and advice is a touching and
helpful gift to our youth-obsessed age."—Stephen Mansfield, New York Times bestselling author

My
Grandfather, Elmer Askwith, 102
by Kabrina Rozine

Elmer at age 102 is still
quite the gardener.
Look at the size of that carrot!

Elmer Askwith was born
in 1911, the fourth of five children. He grew up in a rural farm
community in a family that, like their neighbors, had big hearts but
little money. One way of passing the time was to listen to and play
music. Elmer’s older sister, Georgina, loved to play the piano that
the Askwith family was fortunate enough to have in their home. Elmer
enjoyed the music and yearned to get his own violin. As a youth, he
browsed the Sears and Roebuck catalog. It contained everything from
toys to clothing, and even houses (in fact more than one family from
his community purchased a home through this venue).

Elmer spotted a violin in the catalog and dreamed of
being able to buy it. The cost was $7.00, which was quite a bit of
money for a family that “didn’t have two pennies to rub together.”
Elmer was excited when he realized that the township was offering 10
cents per rat tail to help control the rat population. He was even
more appreciative of the fact that his father said he could keep all
of the money that he could earn through rat trapping.

National
Centenarian Awareness Project (NCAP)
a nonprofit
organization, was founded by Lynn
Peters Adler, J.D., who has devoted her career to honoring, studying,
and advocating for increased recognition and inclusion of centenarians
and all elders as a natural part of the fabric of our society. Lynn has
a wealth of information about this increasing segment of our population
and centenarians in particular. Because of her rapport with this special
group, she has a unique understanding of their needs, thoughts, behavior
and philosophies of life. Lynn’s work is predicated on the belief that
ageism in America is both wrong and unnecessary.

Lynn’s voice on centenarians, longevity and positive aging, with an
emphasis on quality of life issues, has been heard throughout the
United States. She continued her long-standing involvement in
community service with her terms on the Arizona
Governor’s Advisory Council on Aging (www.azgovernor.gov/gaca) and the Arizona Attorney
General’s Senior Advisory Council. For ten years she served as

chairperson of the
Phoenix Mayor’s Aging Services Commission. She
founded the Arizona Centenarian Program during her first
term on the Governor’s Advisory Council on Aging in the
mid 1980s. (click for more: About Lynn
Peters Adler)

Lynn, through her company Sterling
Resources Inc., is a consultant to
businesses
on programs relating to aging, longevity, centenarians and others of
advanced age.
She also serves as
a catalyst to bring active centenarians to the public’s attention, often
through print and broadcast media.